KF368.T29 M66 1853 

Moore, T. V. (Thomas 
Verner), 

1818-1871. 

But a step between man and 
death. A 

discourse, delivered at the 
funeral of 


Carmasal TM nee 1 awe aw ela TS ut 










a reer 


Put a Step between Wan aud Death. 





A DISCOURSE, 


DELIVERED AT THE FUNERAL 


| 
a 





AMUEL TAYLOR, ESQ. 


IN THE 


FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, - 


DIC(CHAGOOAG BIST eo 






RICHMOND, VA., FEB. 24rn, 1853. 


BY THE 


REV. T. V. MOORE. 


(eee 


1 


RICHMOND: e 
' OHAS. H. WYNNE, PRINTER. 


1853. ( 
: IANS 91 


SER TTETT TE TS NU S NUTT E TOUS DOT SCORERS 











i 


De 





But x Step between Aan ak Neath. 





A DISCOURSE, 


DELIVERED AT THE FUNERAL 


OF 


SAMUEL TAYLOR, ESQ. 


IN THE 


FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 


RICHMOND, VA., FEB. 247TH, 1853. 


BY THE 


REV. T. V. MOORE. 


RICHMOND: 
CHAS. H. WYNNE, PRINTER. 
1855. 








RICHMOND, Fesrvary 251n, 1853. 


Rev. and Dear Sir: 


The undersigned in behalf of the members of the Bar, and many citizens of 
Richmond, respectfully request for publication a copy of your very appropriate and 
eloquent discourse delivered on the 24th instant in the First Presbyterian Church 
of this city, upon the occasion of the death of the lamented Samven TAynor, Esq. 

We are, dear sir, 

Very truly yours, 

HOLDEN RHODES, 
THOS. T. GILES, 
WM. H. MACFARLAND, 
JOS. MAYO, 
Pe EAU GUL 
M. JOHNSON, 
P. V. DANIEL, Jry 
JOHN HOWARD, 
A. H. SANDS, 
PHACHY R. GRATTAN, 
G. A. MYERS, 
GEO. W. RANDOLPH, 
R. T, DANIEL, 
JNO. M. PATTON, Jr, 
R. B. HEATH. 


RICHMOND, Fesuary 257u, 1853. 


Gentlemen : 

In reply to yeur very courteous request for a copy of the discourse preached on 
occasion of the funeral of the late SAmurn Taytor, Esq., I would respectfully say, 
that it will afford me great pleasure to aid thus in rendering an additional token of 
respect to the memory of one who so richly deserved our respect ; and hence as soon 
as the discourse can be prepared for this purpose, it will be placed at your disposal. 


Tam yours, &e., 
T. V. MOORE. 


To Messvs, Rhodes, Giles, Macfarland and others. 


Oe 


y. 
Lael 





DISCOURSE. 


1 Samuel, xx: 3.— THERE IS BUT A STEP BETWEEN ME AND DEATH.” 


The death of an honest and honorable lawyer is a great 
public calamity. The importance of the legal profession is so 
great; its relations to every department of human life are so 
manifold and deep; its influence on the enjoyment of life, 
liberty, reputation, and property is so profound, that every man 
has a direct interest in its purity and elevation. Let its tone 
be high, its morals pure, and its standard just, and it stands as 
it has often stood in the past, one of the great breakwaters of 
human history; a wall of adamant against lawlessness on the 
one hand and despotism on the other, and is the earthly symbol 
of that most sacred of the attributes of Jehovah, His unbending 
and untarnished justice. But if its members be corrupt and 
impure, and the spirit of pettifogging supplant the spirit of 
high forensic honor, every interest in society must suffer; for 
every man is exposed to the power of annoyance, which unseru- 
pulous malice can so readily use in the necessary flexibility of 
the forms of legal process. And so many are the temptations 
that may be offered to cupidity and meanness in the transac- 
tions of life, that nothing but an elevated tone of professional 
honor can protect the community from that worse than Egyp- 
tian curse, a spawn of mean and malignant pettifoggers, whose 
stinging annoyances will penetrate every house, and bring all 
law and justice into disrepute and contempt. Hence, when any 
one whose influence is commanding, and whose example is pure, 
is removed from the profession, it is a public loss which ought 
to be acknowledged by a public sorrow. But when to a profes- 
sional and public position of the highest character there is 





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we RT TS EE LE RG Te A Ne 


4. DISCOURSE. 





added private worth and influence, that draw around its pos- 
sessor the love as well as the admiration of those that know 
him, the loss is yet greater and the grief yet deeper than any 
public calamity will ordinarily call forth. 

Such a combination of mournful facts brings us together this 
morning. In the language of another, ‘“‘the father of the 
Virginia bar” has fallen; and therefore, not only the bar of 
Virginia, but the people of Virginia, have met with a loss, the 
extent of which none but God can know. We who have min- 
gled with him in the amenities of private life, who have set at 
his feet and listened to his rich and flowing conversation, well 
know that we shall not soon look upon his like again. It is, 
therefore, but a fitting tribute to his worth that we should 
turn aside from our daily walks and pay a tribute of respect 
for his memory, and love for his name, in the observance of the 
last sad rites which close his earthly history. 

SAMUEL TAYLOR was born in Cumberland county, Virginia, 
in September, 1781. In infancy his father removed to Ken- 
tucky, where the energy of his character and force of his mind 
gave him great prominence and influence among the settlers of 
what then was truly the dark and bloody ground. About the 
age of fifteen he returned to Virginia to reside with his uncle, 
the late Chancellor Taylor, where he prepared himself to enter 
on the practice of law, which he did in Manchester about 1804. 
Thus for nearly half a century has he been engaged in the 
laborious practice of his profession—a practice which, in his 
case, owing to the extent of his circuit of engagements, was 
peculiarly toilsome. From the first, he was characterized by 
marked traits of mind. Although not favored with a com- 
plete education, the wonderful tenacity of his memory, which 
seemed incapable of losing a particle of its contents, and the 
‘great accuracy of his judgment, which seemed rarely ever at 
fault, compensated for the want of this scholastic training. 
His intellectual attributes were mainly of that broad, massive, 





¥ 





DISCOURSE. 5 








and powerful kind that fitted him peculiarly for the practice of 
his profession. His mind was like some broad, massive pyra- 
mid, where every part rested on an unmoving basis. Strong 
common sense, clear judgment, and a retentive memory, were 
the attributes that always presented themselves to an observer ; 
and over and around them all there played a delicate wit and 
humor that gilded with a graceful glow the stronger features 
of his mind, and made him a most charming companion in pri- 
vate life, as well as a most agreeable debater in public. He 
was repeatedly solicited to accept a place on the bench, for 
which he was eminently qualified, but always refused, having 
no ambition for place or power. Had he possessed more ordi- 
nary ambition he would have attained more ordinary fame ; but 
his was a simple greatness that had no itching for notoriety, 
but was always more anxious to be than to seem. 

But his most remarkable and memorable qualifications were 
those of the heart. There never walked the earth one of whom 
it might be more emphatically said, he is an honest man. Ho- 
nesty that never brooked a stain; integrity that hated an insin- 
cerity as much as most minds resent an injury; a truthfulness 
that had all the exactness of a photograph and gave back the 
uncolored representations of all that was entrusted to it, were 
the uniform manifestations of his character. There was no- 
thing that would strike a stranger sooner than the scrupulous 
exactness of his statements of fact, which were always made as 
if given under oath, to be placed on record as testimony in the 
case then under discussion. This was apparent in his public as 
well as his private life. He had not one conscience for the 
forum and another for the fireside, but was in both the same 
unbending, impenetrable type of honesty and uprightness, inca- 
pable of doing that in public life which he would blush to do in 
private. Hence, when representing the county of Chesterfield 
in the Legislature, (which he did in both branches of it,) he was 
elected a membersof the memorable Convention of ’29-'30. 


vT< 


6 DISCOURSE. 
During the period in which its sessions were coincident with 
those of the Legislature, he refused to do, what he had a per- 
fect legal right to do, draw pay for his membership im both. 
He never would receive but a single per diem allowance, obey- 

7% 





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ing the lofty instincts of his fine sense of honor and integrity 
rather than the canons of custom or the permissions of law. 
The same inflexible honesty of character made him despise 
everything like gambling, even when practised according to the 
severest requirements of the code of honor. He deemed it a 
dishonesty, and would never allow a card, a dice-box, or any 
instrument of the art to enter his house. His kindness of 
nature was proverbial. Never was there a human heart that 
yielded to the dictates of generosity and charity more promptly 
than his. Many a widow and orphan, whom he has relieved 
and cheered by his unobtrusive kindness, will drop tears of 
unaffected sorrow over his grave, and many a home, brightened 
by his unpretending charities, will long cherish his memory in 
grateful remembrance. As a husband, a father, a master, and 
a friend, we need say nothing of him, as his memorial is indeli- 
bly written in the unforgetting hearts of sorrowing survivors. 
Of his relations to the doctrines of christianity, but little 
need be said. He was a firm believer in its truths, a constant 
reader of its inspired records, and a profound reverer of its in- 
stitutions. He never avowed himself a full participant of its 
hopes, although he was in himself an example of many of its 
precepts, and practised many of its requirements. But his 
spirit is with a merciful God, who ever does what is just and 
right. His death was unexpected, and his life may be said to 
have been a sacrifice to a high sense of professional duty. 
Having a courage that never quailed before the face of man, no 
danger could prevent him from doing or saying what he con- 
sidered he should do, in the discharge of his duty. Like Talus, 
with the iron flail, he went right forward, not parleying or 
tampering, with any consideration of policy or expediency, 


4 


OSA AE IS EE EEE EE LE EIEN DEA ET PT SD PI ESE ETO GS 


>, 


rye 


Yn CNRS ESET AE SMB PRESS TS SI ISR LT I ESS EES RE I I BI ETE EPR ST REE SIT 





-J 


DISCOURSE. 





doing and saying what he believed to be right. Thus, following 
a dictate of his conscience, and doing what he believed to be 
his duty, he proceeded to Powhatan Court House on profes- 
sional business, although aware, before he started, that his 
presence might be of no avail, but determining that at least 
he should not be the cause of any failure in the case. On his 
return he was in the finest health and spirits, but after leaving 
the Danville Railroad cars, and while passing along towards a 
coach, he made a misstep upon the track of the railway, and 
falling forward, encumbered as he was with a cloak, his head 
struck upon one of the iron rails, and thus he received an in- 
jury which at first seemed slight, but afterwards proved fatal. 
He conversed rationally until within about a square of his resi- 
dence, when, owing to some internal effusion of the brain, or 
the effect of the shock given to his whole system by the con- 
cussion, his eyes were closed and his lips sealed in that deep 
darkness and silence from which he never recovered, but was 
carried into his house, only to linger for a few hours of uncon- 
sciousness, and then die a martyr to his lofty sense of profes- 
sional duty. Thus has broken another of the few remaining 
links that bind us to that age of giants that has passed away ; 
thus has been removed one of the last of those bright, undying 
stars that glitter on the broad shield of Virginia’s fame, among 
which shine such names as those of Marshall, Leigh, Wickham, 
Stanard, Giles, Johnson, and others, whose memories shall not 
soon fade from among men. And although in this glittering 
galaxy of greatness, there may be those whose fame is wider 
than his, yet among them was there none who had a loftier 
soul and a nobler heart than he, around whose cold remains 
you gather this day as mourners. 

Without then dwelling further on this particular theme, or 
adverting to those topics of consolation to mourning friends, 
which can be so much better applied to the hearts of the sor- 
rowing at another time and place, we turn to the direct con- 


ER I BEB a AEE a BNIB LE ERE TOE BEE IE BD EE TNE EEO, 
a4 el 


va SEE a gE AL DT EELS SEE UY A ET Be LO RRL ya 


8 DISCOURSE. 
sideration of the words that have in this instance received so 





solemn and striking illustration: “There is but a step between 
me and death.” 

In the case of our lamented friend it was literally true, that 
there was but a step between him and death. A single step 
was the cause of his death. Nor is his a solitary case. <A step, 
a stumble, the fall of some heavy body from above, a flash of 
lightning, a bullet, a dagger, a pang of sudden disease, have 
ushered thousands into eternity. Every organ, every sense, 
every nerve, may either directly or indirectly open the door of 
the citadel of life to the last dread enemy. So wondrously 
adjusted are the balances and processes on which the working 
of the fine and mysterious organism of life depends, that it has 
well been said that if it were laid bare to our constant inspec- 
tion, we would be almost afraid to move, lest we should de- 
range its delicate adjustments. Now, although it is true that 
death does not come so suddenly to all, yet it is still true of all 
that there is but a step between them and death. The sudden 
deaths are only the cases in which this step is suddenly taken. 
A path may wind hard by the verge of a dreadful precipice, 
and a man may long walk it without toppling over, yet at every 
point of the perilous way is it true that there is but a step 
between him and destruction. Such a path is life. We may 
long walk in safety along the misty margin that overhangs the 
dark and deep valley, but at each moment are we exposed to 
so many causes of disease and dissolution, that it is ever true 
of us, that there is but a step between us and death. A rolling 
pebble, a gust of wind, a reeling step, a sudden shock, and we 
make the dread plunge, and disappear in the dark. 

Here, then, is a state of facts that should arrest our attention. 
Why is it so? We are surrounded with unnumbered proofs 
that the great Author of life is a being of infinite goodness, 
and desires not the suffering of his creatures, and yet he has 
suspended all that we love and enjoy in life on the uncertain- 


Co alee ys 





co 


DISCOURSE. 





ties of a single step. Why is this? Why does the path of 
life lie thus along the verge of this awful precipice? Why are 
human hopes, and human hearts, and human homes, all exposed 
to such a fearful peril? This is a fact so universal that it de- 
mands some explanation; and if we can find a theory of life 
which adjusts itself to, and explains it, we have the strongest 
presumptive evidence that this theory is true, and worthy of 
our adoption. 

Practically, if not speculatively, there are but two great the- 
ories of life, on one or the other of which every man substan- 
tially acts; the one, that which makes this life all, and thinks 
or cares nothing in regard to what may follow it; the other, 
that which makes this life but the scene of preparation for the 
life to come; the one the theory of the world, the other the 
theory of the Bible. 

If the first view of life be the true one, then this fact remains 
a dark, inexplicable mystery. If this is all of man’s history, 
why were its precious things placed in this posture of tantalizing 
uncertainty? If the banquet of life is all that the soul shall 
ever taste, why is it a Damocles’ feast, over which there is ever 
suspended the hair-hung edge of this fearful doom? If the pre- 
sent is our all, why those lofty capacities that are ever mocked 
by the unsatisfying hollowness of all that we grasp? Why is 
contented enjoyment of the world only purchased by ignoring 
the undoubted fact that we hold its treasures by so uncertain a 
tenure, and therefore purchased by a partial abjuring of our 
rationality? The brute may enjoy the present with thought- 
less delight, for the brute knows not that there is but a step 
between him and death; but man, who knows this fact, has by 
this very knowledge lost the capacity of this enjoyment, except 
by a constant oblivion of this undoubted verity, and a constant 
levelling ef the preéminence of his rational distinction. This 
would be to establish a perpetual contradiction between the 
facts of his nature, and to make that nature at least a riddle 


=I. 


Eee eee eee 


10 DISCOURSE. 





and a mystery, if not an engine of ingenious torture, relief 
from which could only be purchased by forgetting, and practi- 
cally denying the undoubted fact, that there is but a step be- 
tween man and death. Hence this fact cannot be adjusted to 
that general theory of life on which the world usually acts, 
except on the most desperate and brutal Epicureanism, which 
says, ‘‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die:” a refuge 
which makes God a phantom, man a brute, and the universe an 
inexplicable accident. 

Revolting from these conclusions, we turn to the hypothesis 
of the Bible, and enquire whether it is more consistent with 
this great fact? Assume it to be true that this world is but the 
temporary dwelling place of man; that he is placed here to pre- 
pare for a higher state of existence; that the present is but the 
school, the seed-time, the probationary scene for the future ; 
that time is but the infancy of which eternity is the manhood, 
and that our condition hereafter is to be determined by our con- 
duct here ;—and assume farther, that man is a fallen, sinful 
being, indisposed to reflect on the high destiny that may be 
reached by him, and that God has provided a way of reaching 
that destiny through a Saviour, which He desires man to accept, 
and that this life is the only period in which this acceptance is 
possible; and on the supposition that these things are true, does 
not the fact seem less inexplicable, that there is but a step be- 
tween man and death? ‘The facts of life should then be so 
arranged as to lead us to reflect on these great things of eter- 
nity; to force them upon our attention, and, as far as possible, 
to project them among the scenes of our daily life. This, how- 
ever, can only be done by making the interval that divides the 
two classes of events but a single step. If there was a barrier 
between the two that could not be narrowed, and the crossing 
of which secured sufficient time to prepare for the scenes of 
eternity, men would be encouraged to postpone all attention to 
these topics, or preparation for these realities, until they reached , 


DISCOURSE. 11 








this broad boundary; and thus there would be no such influence 
of the future on the present as the Bible requires, and as is 
necessary for the elevation of man’s fallen nature, and he would 
be induced to plunge deeper and deeper into the evils and follies 
of the world until his nature petrified in its sin. But when he 
knows that there is no such broad barrier; that he walks side 
by side along the margin of these high and solemn realities ; 
that they lift themselves beside his narrow path, but a single 
step from his perilous footing; and that though the ground may 
crumble long and slowly beneath his feet and warn him of his 
plunge, yet a single step may rend the veil and bring him face 
to face before these awful and changeless things, the propriety 
of preparing to meet them becomes unanswerably clear, the 
solemn warnings of the Bible acquire a fresh significance and 
force, and the future, the spiritual and the eternal, begin to 
mingle themselves in wholesome correction with the absorbing 
flow of the present, the earthly and the temporal. Hence, 
assuming the Bible teaching on these topics to be true, we find 
them to explain this startling fact, and to show us why it not 
only is, but ought to be true, that there is but a step between 
man and death. 

But we have not yet exhausted the significance of this great 
fact. We-have found it to corroborate the teachings of the 
Bible in regard to the things that are unseen and eternal, that 
lie without us; but there are other facts within us, in regard to 
which we may find it equally instructive. Indeed the main fact 
that seems to be left untouched by it, is the indifference to un- 
seen and eternal things which we have adduced as one of the 
things demanding this very arrangement. The subtle sugges- 
tions of unbelief in the heart awake the enquiry, Why do these 
unseen things affect us so little, if they be actual verities like 
those that are seen? If they be real, undoubted existences, 
why have they not a more palpable influence on our daily life? 
Two explanations of this indifference to unseen and eternal 





12 DISCOURSE. 





things are suggested: the one, that of unbelief, that they have 
no real existence, but are the mere figments of superstition, and 
hence incapable of acting powerfully on the general mind, which 
can be moved only by actual verities; the other, that of the 
Bible, that man is a fallen, depraved creature, having no taste 
for these spiritual things, and hence unwilling to ponder, and 


unable to feel, the force of these high and sacred realities. 


Here, then, we are met by the very fact under consideration, 
which demonstrates the fallacy of the suggestions of unbelief 
on this point. If death and eternity were divided by some broad 
region of separation, or if death were removed from the com- 
mon facts of life by some wide and unchangeable interval, in 
either case we might suppose that it was the want of reality 
that made us treat eternal things with neglect, for we would 
have no undoubted facts, standing side by side with them, to 
which we could bring our feelings as a standard of comparison. 
But if we find undeniable realities which occupy the identical 
ground in relation to us that these eternal things occupy, and 
which we treat in exactly the same way, we know that the 
reason for this treatment must be found not in the things them- 
selves, but in us. Such is precisely the case with the arrange- 
ment under consideration, by which there is but a step between 
us and death. Death and eternal things are so inseparably 
connected that our contact with the one will inevitably be our 
entrance on the other. Now, by the arrangement under dis- 
cussion, death is brought so close to life, and so inextricably 
mingled with all its parts, that it is always true that there is 
but a step between the one and the other. Life, death, and 
eternity are thus blended and intermingled in point of fact, 
however they may be separated in point of thought. But 
death we know to be a stern and tremendous fact, of which a 
man can no more doubt than he can of life. We see its awful 
shadow, we feel its chill breath, and shiver before its dread pre- 
sence as it passes. But whilst we know it to be a fact, do we 


ASE CIE. TTS RT TE EE TE CTS GA TR RA RS CS 
a 


a 


4 


oy 





DISCOURSE. 15 





so treat it? Do we recognise its reality in our daily life any 
more than we do that of eternal things? Do we not treat the 
one exactly as we treat the other? Now, then, if our neglect 
and forgetfulness of death is undeniably not because of any 
want of reality in it, is not this proof positive that the same 
treatment of eternal things does not arise from any want of 
reality in them? Is not the conclusion unavoidable that the 
cause of neglect in each case must be essentially the same? 
Here, then, we are brought back by this same fact to the 
teachings of the Bible on this topic, that it is because man is a 
sinful being, and has no relish for the things of eternity, that 
he avoids their consideration, and thus escapes from their 
power. Were the Heaven of the Bible a Mohammedan Para- 
dise, with its silken pavilions, its beauteous houris, and its gar- 
dens of sensuous pleasures ; or a Pagan Elysium, with its bowers 
of bliss and its fields of flowers, where the pursuits of earth 
should be renewed under a sky that knew no storm, and in a 
world that knew no grave; were the inheritance of the saints 
in light a possession that could be obtained without the sacrifice 
of darling lusts, or the assumption of irksome duties, then 
would the masses in Christian lands be as fanatically devout as 
the masses that believe in Mohammedanism and Paganism. 
Ambition would kindle to win the crowns and palaces of heaven, 
as it now pants to obtain those of earth; avarice would gloat 
over the splendor of its streets of gold and its gates of pearl, 
as it now grasps the glittering dust of earthly wealth; pleasure 
would pine to revel in those transcendent delights that could 
never pall and never cease; and pride would be soothed by the 
thought that no humbling concessions were exacted, but all was 
arranged in flattering accommodation to the felt dignity and 
importance of man. Combining elements like these, the masses 
would burn to possess the heaven of Christianity with as fierce 
a fervor as that which inflamed the hordes that swept like a | 
torrent of fire from the sands of the desert at the call of the | 








o% 





14 DISCOURSE. 





Arabian prophet, and as indomitable a courage as that which 
poured the children of Odin from the dark forests of the North. 
But when heaven is a place of holy hearts, and holy joys; a 
place whose outward splendors, surpassing though they be, can 
only be enjoyed by an inward sanctity; and when a title to its 
possession is to be obtained only by an humble penitence, a 
self-renouncing faith, and a holy obedience to Jesus Christ, 
then is it that its scenes begin to fade away from the languid 
eye and the undesiring soul into a dim and powerless distance. 
Hence we may listen to the whisperings of unbelief as long as 
we turn our eyes away from the solemn fact that meets us in 
the text, and suspect that our indifference to eternal things 
arises from their unreality, but this unbelief must vanish before 
the test of a stricter logic as we look more closely at the fact 
that there is but a step between us and death. 

Now, then, if we find the fact named in the text inexplicable 
on any other hypothesis than that of the Bible; if we find that 
the two adjust themselves to each other with all the fine and 
faultless accuracy of a preéstablished harmony; if we find that 
facts within and without us, in the present and in the future, 
are perfectly intelligible on the supposition that the Bible teach- 
ings are true, and unintelligible on any-other supposition, we 
have a new and surprising proof that the God who arranges 
the one has also inspired the other. Earth thus answers back 
to heaven; God in His works endorses all that is said in His 
word ; the very grave from its hollow depths gives echoing 
response to the solemn accents of the Gospel; and the warn- 
ings, commands, and entreaties of the sure word of prophecy, 
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to repent and return to 
God while it is called to-day, and to seek Him whilst He may 
be found, all receive a most impressive confirmation by the 
solemn fact which the word and the providence of God unite 
in declaring to us this day that there is but a step between us 
and death. Hence it is with a renewed confidence that we 


re 


¥. 
Pe bf 





DISCOURSE. 1 


come this day to press upon your hearts the offer of salvation 
in Jesus Christ, and to beseech you to give instant and earnest 
heed to its provisions of mercy. When the Spirit and the 
Bride say come; when the path of life and the plunge of death 
say come; when heaven and earth, the Bible and the grave, 
the crowded hearts of the living and the hushed hearts of the 
dead, all unite in saying come, surely to refuse to come is a 
folly and a crime for the expression of which words are almost 
inadequate. 

Standing, then, above the remains of our honored and 
lamented friend, I turn, in conclusion, to you, whe have been 
his compeers in the same honorable and toilsome profession, 
and with all respect, and yet with all fidelity, would J press 
upon you the warrant and the warning of the Gospel. Like 
him we this day mourn, you are mortal, and like him you are 
also immortal, and like him you may be summoned unwarned 
from the passing scenes of the one stage of being to the un- 
changing realities of the other. Are you ready for these dread 
realities? Are you prepared for this solemn summons? If 
not, I beseech you to make ready for the messenger whose step 
shall so soon be at your door. If you had a case in any of the 
courts involving seriously the interests of a client, the calling 
of which was wholly uncertain, and yet which when called must 
be tried, you would esteem it a blot on your professional repu- 
tation to neglect due preparation for it, and thus expose your 
client to the hazard of injury and loss by your want of readi- 
ness. And yet in such a case the loss accruing might only be 
of some worldly wealth which industry could soon retrieve, and 
contentment soon forget; or the injury suffered, only a tempo- 
rary wrong which an appellate court could rectify, or an appro- 
ving conscience endure. But the case for which we urge you 
to prepare is immeasurably different in every aspect and rela- 
tion. In it you are to act not for another, but for yourselr. 
In it are involved not the petty and passing interests of time, 


a a a ag ener erly 


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D4 spapeernr rr eT TEETER TE BS NE IMT EI MLE SE TE ER RTE II 





y. 
Late! 


16 DISCOURSE. 








but the dread and stupendous interests of eternity. In it you 
are to stand not before the tribunal of a fellow worm, whose 
feeble and fallible decisions may be resisted and reversed if 
wrong, or borne with sustaining resignation if right, but before 
that dread tribunal, the judgment throne of the living God, 
from whose unchangeable decisions there lies no appeal, and 
from whose eternal sentence there exists no escape. And 
before that tribunal as you are, in your sins, you must be con- 
demned—you are condemned already. But your condemnation 
is not yet hopeless or final. There is an advocate provided, an 
advocate who has never lost a cause, and who has never for- 
saken a client; an advocate who this day offers himself without 
money and without price as your friend, your surety, your Sa- 
viour, even Jesus Christ the righteous. He asks no costly 
oblation, no earthly price; He offers himself freely, and asks 
you simply to entrust your case to His hands, to cast yourself 
upon His great surety work, and you shall be safe. Oh, will 
you not take Him at His word? Will you not accept Him as 
your advocate, your protector, your Saviour, your all? Will 
not your neglect of this powerful advocate, thus so freely 
offered, and your heedless hazarding of that tremendous fate 
from which you are removed but a single step, be a crime the 
most suicidal and a madness the most amazing? In the view 
of that dread bar before which we are so soon to mect again, 
I now warn you to beware of this imsane neglect, and submit 
to the summons of God in His gospel. Disregarding this sum- 
mons of mercy, there then remains for you nothing but the 
summons of wrath, the fearful looking for of judgment ; and it 
it is with no delight in the utterance of terrible things, but in 
felt fidelity to the truth of the living God, and the interests of 
the undying soul, that I say to you, not only that there is but a 
step between you and death, but also more sadly and solemnly, 
that there is but a step between you and Hell. 





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